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When both Emre Can and Divock Origi left the pitch limping during the 5-0 League Cup victory at Burton Albion, Liverpool fans could be forgiven for expecting the worst. Injuries have plagued this Liverpool side for the better part of the past two seasons, and this year doesn’t appear to be off to a great start in that department either. Currently, Liverpool have 7 senior players injured (depending whether or not you count Sakho’s strained relationship muscle), enough for joint third in the Premier League Injury Table.
Thankfully, Jürgen Klopp helped alleviate the concerns over the health of Origi and Can in his pre-match presser, with the one big caveat that Saturday might be too soon for either player to return.
“We need to wait a little bit,” Klopp said, “With Emre there is nothing really serious in the ankle, but it is his ankle where he had a few problems in the past. It should not be long, but maybe not for the Tottenham game.
“It’s the same with Divock, it’s not serious. There are different levels of cramp.”
Obviously the trip to Spurs constitutes a “big game” by any definition, so missing Origi and Can will big significant absences if they can’t make it. However, missing one league game, regardless of its importance, seems like a good trade-off if they can be fit and ready to go following the international break.
Klopp also responded to critics who questioned the necessity of running out such a strong side against Burton Albion.
“It’s not about rest. These boys recover in hours. If you have 50 games in your legs it’s different but it’s not the moment for this.
“We had fresh, high quality players on the bench. So we could do this (play a strong team). It was not about our opponent, it was about our rhythm. The most important stage in early part of season is to get rhythm. We needed to use every minute.”
Aside from being the perfect tonic to the defeat at Turf Moor, the League Cup fixture allowed the side to regain some confidence and continue gelling. Granted, it’s hard to get a rhythm when your players are dropping like flies. So there’s that. Hopefully we can get to (and through) the international break without any additional bad news.